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Weeds - Waste
Areas
Meadows
- what to think about planting
Woodland & Shade - spring
plants
Roadsides,
Railways and Waste Places
The classic plants of waste places that many of us will be familiar
with in Europe are the Common Poppy, Papaver rhoeas and Scented Mayweed,
Matricaria recutita [unless you live in Spitzbergen apparently!],
refugees from the cornfields. Many annuals take advantage of disturbed
land and sparse conditions as the initial colonisers, adapted to grow
fast, seed around and move on.
A perennial I have always loved is Toadflax,
Linaria vulgaris, for it's tangy lemon flowers and low growing but perky
habit. It is often seen growing in dry conditions on roadsides and along
rail tracks. I tried it once in a garden and even in full sun it grew
to be a lanky and unattractive mess - not hard enough living for it. I
won't try it again in an ordinary garden context but it may work in a
low maintenance gravel planting. One of it's relatives the perennial
Linaria purpurea comes in a number of colour forms, but not tangy
lemon, and is far better behaved sometimes to the point of retiring never
to been seen again like Springside White! Canon Went, a pink form is also
available. A few years ago there was a gorgeous display of L. purpurea
growing in amongst the railtracks on the entry to Bristol Temple Meads
station. The linaria had thrown up many different shades of pinks, purples
and whites and en masse provided a soft and airy display in what is a
hard and ugly environment. Unfortunately the rail company has now reclaimed
the land for working tracks and the display is no more.
Railway embankments are host to another favourite weed, the Wild Carrot, Daucus carota a biennial which some might dismiss as just another Cow Parsley. The Wild Carrot is a plant of high summer and more filigreed and delicate in appearance than Cow Parsley [Anthriscus sylvestris] or Queen Anne's lace if you will. Colonies of plants with their thick creamy white heads and feathery leaves are often seen beautifying the sides of rail tracks and roadsides. When the flowers are finished, the seed heads turn inwards into a pale brown fist.
Even the humble Cow Parsley has been allowed entry into gardens through primarily dark leaved cultivars which include 'Ravenswing'. In good forms 'Ravenswing' has deep purpley-brown leaves and stems and the flowers have a pinkish tinge. I remember some years ago seeing a planting near The Mall in Central London, the ordinary white flowered Cow Parsley was intermingled with satin red tulips and the first lush grass of May. Unexpected in an urban context, and just at that moment highlighted by a low sun softened by hazy just rainwashed air. In that small space of time as my taxi sped by, the freshness and excitement of the new growing season was encapsulated.
Yarrow, Achillea millefolium is often seen by roadsides with low growing 'ferny' foliage and heads of small grubby off-white truncated 'daisy' flowers. When crushed the leaves have an odd semi-savoury spicy scent. Achillea have been receiving some hybridising attention and a wide range of cultivars are now available in pastel pinks through to rich reds and oranges. They are used in the 'prairie' style plantings as they 'fit' well with the general style. I have found that the one's I grow have different habits, some run, some clump and others go woody and need splitting quite often to keep them going. In heavier clay soils they do not appear to last very long.
I
have planted another weed, Orange Hawkweed, Heiracium aurantiacum [Pilosella
aurantiacum] in the red border in the developing village garden. My reference
book says it is found in grassy and waste places throughout Britain and
Northern Europe, but for me it is a weed in the right place [at least
for the moment]. It is a rampant carpeting spreader so beware! Another
rampant spreader is Petasites or Winter Heliotrope, the pale mauve
tufts of scented flowers early on in the year lighten up a dull day. In
the garden it can be hard to contain or eradicate so best admired in wild
and waste places.
A fairly localised rarity is The Bath Asparagus, Ornithogalum pyrenaicum,
there was an explosion in the populations of the ethereal green flower
spikes on the roadsides and verges in June 2003 around Bath and Bradford
on Avon which hasn't been repeated to date. The plants tuck themselves
into hedge rows where there is a bit of shade and moisture and are often
difficult to spot. I have not so far tried to grow this bulbous plant
in a garden context.
Yesterdays
garden plants todays weeds - there are plants that were once welcomed
into gardens but now as 'escapes' are very much unwelcome - Impatiens
glandulifera or Himalayan Balsam, Rhododendron ponticum and the
extremely pernicious and much vilified Japanese Knotweed, Fallopia
japonica to name a few. It is actually illegal to plant certain plants
because of their colonising nature and you will find many countries have
their own introduced bugbears which are now on the banned list. Defra
has estimated that it would cost £1.56 billion using current techniques
to eradicate Japanese Knotweed in the UK which they say would not be realistic
in practical or financial terms. There is even a Weed Act [1959] which
concerns agricultural weeds such as Ragwort.
There are some weeds of waste places which if one was not familiar with
them then you might think, possibly? Bindweed, Calystegia sepium
for example - I always think it should be richly scented and then we might
enjoy its huge flared white trumpets more before rooting out the tangles
of white fleshy running roots from flower beds and allotments. I did read
of someone actually wanting to include it in their border for authenticity
- hmm, well kept pernicious weeds, a bit of a novelty.
References
and links
Kari's Garden plant index - you
will find images and further information on some of the plants mentioned
DEFRA
links to information on non native species
Global Invasive Species Programme
Australian
invasive weeds information
Swedish
Weeds - a quirky web site with pictures of wildflowers found around
Gothenburg/Göteborg in Sweden
The Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe [1974] Richard Fitter,
Alastair Fitter, Marjorie Blamey [reprint 2003]
Buy
Achillea- Slipps, Butts Hill, Frome, Somerset, BA11 1HR [Tel:
01373 467013]
Arne Herbs - over 800 varieties of herbs and wild flowers
Chiltern Seeds - including Linaria, Wild Carrot and Bath Asparagus
Really Wild Flowers - plug plants of a wide range of native species
See - any journey you undertake on railtracks, highways & byways
@Kari's garden 2002 - 2006